Homeowners who pump surplus energy from solar panelling on their homes back into the grid could be paid a fee, but it will be January 2009 before it is known how much.

The NSW government will announce today that it will introduce a feed-in tariff next year to encourage people to fit their homes with solar panelling. Any left over energy could be bounced back to the grid, earning the homeowners a fistful green dollars.

However if NSW follows the examples of Victoria, South Australia and Queensland and introduces a ‘net’feed-in tariff, in which households are only paid for the surplus they produce, the incentive would not amount to much in hard cash.

Strong objections from one of the state’s main energy retailers, Energy Australia, have already made NSW the last state to introduce the feed-in tariff and could prevent the introduction of a ‘gross’ feed-in tariff where power companies pay households for all the energy they generate, including their own, then bill them for their own power use.

Michael Mobbs, Sydney-based sustainability consultant, told Architecture & Design that it was not in the government’s interest to promote solar subsidies. The government gets around 20 per cent of its income in dividends from businesses such as Energy Australia, he said. And the more green energy companies buy, the less it will earn in dividends.

“It’s a conflict of interest,” Mobbs said. “[The government] is both the game keeper and the poacher… taxing agent, polluter and regulator. We’re the losers – the environment and the citizens.”

A joint taskforce is being set up to decide the details of the scheme, energy minister Ian Macdonald said.

“A taskforce will advise us on the range of issues to be addressed: the type of renewables available, emerging technologies, possible harmonisation with other states, and rates and implementation of tariffs,” he said. The taskforce would report back to government in January, with the scheme expected to be implemented by mid-2009.